Turkey on Monday inaugurated its first aircraft carrier TCG Anadolu, designed to take off and land Turkish combat drones, AFP reports.

“Turkish Bayraktar TB3 and Kizilelma drones and Hürjet light combat aircraft will be able to take off and land on the ship,” said Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is running for re-election in May.

“The largest Turkish warship”

At 231 meters long and 32 meters wide, TCG Anadolu is the largest Turkish warship.

On the flight deck, the ship will be able to accommodate ten helicopters or eleven combat drones and another 19 helicopters (or thirty combat drones) in the hangar.

The ship, whose construction began in 2016, can also carry up to 94 vehicles, including 13 tanks.

NATO member Turkey’s defense industry has grown significantly in recent years, thanks in particular to the success of its drones, which have become the pride of Ankara.

The TB2 model from Baykar, a private company run by President Erdogan’s son-in-law, proved useful in Libya and Azerbaijan, and later in Ukraine, where TB2 drones were used in the early hours of last year’s Russian invasion.

Ankara, which has since stepped up mediation efforts between Kiev and Moscow and has made several shows of force in the eastern Mediterranean in the past, will be able to use its unmanned aircraft carrier “to carry out military and humanitarian operations in the four corners of the world, if necessary,” the president said. Erdogan during the inauguration.

China also unveiled its first unmanned aircraft carrier last year, a testament to the growing importance of unmanned aerial vehicles in modern warfare.